Second Hard Drive

[IronForge]

Greetings:

I've a second hard drive (internal) that I couldn't set up during the install program.

It's a larger drive; and I'm already beginning to peg my /home directory limits of my original HDD.

Reading up on Section 14, I'd like to start using that disk. It talks about copying/xfering the usr/local directory. I need to copy /home over; but would like to know if the new disk can be used/integrated better.

(thinking of splitting the disk to two partitions - usr and home - or using some of it for Virtualbox(if I can get it running under emul/linux) or KQEMU virtual images of Windoze and/or Linux)

Q1: With about 100GB available; what would be a good way to partition the second drive? Do people use GParted here, or are there better tools used here in OBSD?

Any suggestions and tips would be appreciated.


Thanks.

[BSDfan666]

VirtualBox requires a kernel module that is not available for OpenBSD, it also has a lot of other dependencies.. you will not be able to use it on OpenBSD.

QEMU (..currently outdated) with kqemu may work, although there have been issues with kqemu on MP kernels.. and possibly amd64.

Theo has also stated that the emulator has several bugs preventing OpenBSD from running properly inside it as well.

As for the new disk, it is very easy to use it the way you want.. prepare the disk using fdisk(8)+disklabel(8) and newfs(8) as normal, copy over any existing data using cp(1) or dump(8)/restore(8) and then alter your /etc/fstab file accordingly.

After you've done that, just reboot.

[gbechis]

Originally Posted by BSDfan666

QEMU (..currently outdated) with kqemu may work, although there have been issues with kqemu on MP kernels.. and possibly amd64.

Theo has also stated that the emulator has several bugs preventing OpenBSD from running properly inside it as well.

Kqemu has issues with bsd.mp and amd64, works well with (at least) Ubuntu, Windows XP and OpenBSD i386 as guests.

[jggimi]

As mentioned in FAQ 14, disk management tools here are fdisk(8) and disklabel(8), then newfs(8) for formatting.

You use fdisk to manipulate MBR partitions, and you use disklabel to manage OpenBSD partitions.

Your second disk can be used for whatever you like. If you wish to -dedicate- it to OpenBSD, you would still use fdisk, and create a single large partition. The -i option should be investigated. If you share the disk with another OS, then you will need to create an MBR partition for OpenBSD partititions to live within.

What specific part of FAQ 14 are you confused about? You could, for instance, move /home to the second drive. You could, instead, move /usr/local there. But as every user's environment is -unique- to them, either you must make your own decisions, or share significantly more about your environment.

For the latter, show the fdisk and disklabel configuration of your first drive, the output of df -h, and the fdisk configuration of the second drive.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by IronForge

Do people use GParted here, or are there better tools used here in OBSD?

• Using tools from one operating system with another may lead to problems as it is not infrequent that subtle differences in interpreting the "standards" may be manifested in the tools.
• Likewise, Linux tools are vetted on & for Linux environments; using them on OpenBSD may or may not be as safe/stable/prudent, etc.

In general, it is best to stay with the tools written specifically for an operating system.